1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a composite record/playback device and more particularly to a composite record/playback device equipped with recording media of different forms and characteristics such as video tapes and hard disc drives.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there have existed composite record/playback devices equipped with recording media of different recording formats and access characteristics referred to as video tapes and hard disc drives, with a configuration of this kind of composite record/playback device being shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a view showing an example configuration of a related composite record/playback device. According to a composite record/playback device 50 shown in FIG. 1, there is one input terminal 51 and one output terminal 52, with an encoder 53 for carrying out compression processing of a Serial Digital Interface (SDI) signal being connected at this input terminal 51. A video tape record/playback block 55 is connected to the output of the encoder 53 via a switch (SW) 54 and a hard disc drive block 58 is connected via a switch 56 and an SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) encoder 57. The output of the video tape record/playback block 55 is connected to a decoder 60 for carrying out expanding processing of the played back signal via a switch 59. The output of the hard disc drive block 58 is also connected to the decoder 60 via an SCSI decoder 61 and the switch 59. The output of the decoder 60 is connected to the output terminal 52 of this composite record/playback device 50. Further, the output of the video tape record/playback block 55 is connected to the switch 56 for changing over the input signal to the hard disc drive block 58 and the output of the SCSI decoder 61 is connected to the switch 54 for changing over the input signal to the video tape record/playback block 55.
With the above configuration, the composite record/playback device 50 is capable of simultaneously recording the same SDI signal at the video tape record/playback block 55 and the hard disc drive block 58 after the SDI signal is subjected to compression processing at the encoder 53, while expanding and outputting played back signals from the video tape record/playback block 55 and the hard disc drive block 58 with the played back signals being expanded at the decoder 60. Therefore, in addition to such basic recording/playback functions, the device 50 is capable of carrying out dubbing processing of signals from the video tape record/playback block 55 to the hard disc drive block 58 by switching over the switch 56 in such a manner as to select the output of the video tape record/playback block 55. In this case, for example, four times speed dubbing is possible by making the video tape record/playback block 55 play back at high speed. Further, equal speed dubbing from the hard disc drive block 58 to the video tape record/playback block 55 is also possible by changing the switch 54 over in such a manner as to select the output of the SCSI decoder 61.
However, the related composite record/playback device 50 only have one input terminal and one output terminal, and one encoder 53 and one decoder 60. It is therefore possible to be a composite recording device capable of simultaneously recording the same signal to the video tape record/playback block 55 and the hard disc drive block 58. However, it is not possible to be a composite playback device where the video tape record/playback block 55 and the hard disc drive block 58 are simultaneously played back with the played back signals then being independently utilized. Therefore, the video tape record/playback block 55 and the hard disc drive block 58 are simply physically put in the same frame to reduce the functionality as a composite.